The Wonder Bread Summer: A Novel

by Jessica Anya Blau

  “Where did you have sex? Like, what does he look like naked?!” Beth asked.

  “He had a really big dick,” Allie whispered, with her hand cupped over the mouthpiece of the phone. The grumbling voice grumbled enthusiastically. “Is Rosie listening to me?”

  “He’s pushing his ear in so he can hear,” Beth said.

  “Where are you guys?”

  “Under the covers.” Beth started laughing and Rosie joined in. Then Beth must have muffled the phone again—better this time—because Allie only heard hushed talking until Beth came back on. “OH, you know what else?! Rosie has the exact same birthmark as you. That patch of blue skin on the small of your back?”

  “Mongolian spots?” Allie wasn’t really interested.

  “Yeah! Only his skin is way darker than yours, ’cause he’s black, you know, so the spots don’t look as blue as yours? They’re sort of dark purple.”

  “Got it. Listen, we need to figure out how to un-mess my messed-up life now,” Allie said.

  “How’s your life messed up? You just had sex with Billy Idol!” Beth said.

  “Uh, Beth? Do you remember that you were being held hostage the last time we talked?” Allie put her mouth closer to the phone and lowered her voice. “And I stole a bread bag full of cocaine after Jonas showed me his dick?!”

  “Jonas showed you his dick? Is that why you took the coke? I thought it was because he didn’t pay you,” Beth said.

  “Well, yeah, both. I guess. He pulled out his dick—” Allie looked up at the hostess to see if she were listening. The hostess was staring at the list of names as if it were a crossword puzzle. “—And I was hallucinating on that baby-jar stuff and I just freaked out.”

  Allie heard more grumbling, then Beth said, “Rosie said it’s okay to freak out about the dick, and it’s okay to be mad about not getting paid, but you shouldn’t have taken the coke.”

  “I know,” Allie said. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  “Rosie said,” Beth was laughing as she spoke, “he’s seen Jonas’s dick, and he understands why someone would look at it and run—” She interrupted herself with more laughter. Allie didn’t join in.

  “Okay, enough about the dicks,” Allie whispered impatiently.

  “Wait, Rosie has one last thing to say—” Beth muffled the receiver for a moment, then came back on. “He says don’t you think it’s interesting how the same act, like a guy showing you his dick, is either pervy or great depending on the guy?”

  “Is he pointing this out because I didn’t do anything crazy when I saw Billy Idol’s dick?” Allie asked.

  “Yeah,” Beth said, then she translated the grumbling that continued in the background. “Rosie said people are never responding to the act, they’re only responding to their perception of the person committing the act.”

  “All right, well, thank Rosie-Paul Sartre for his insight and please ask him if Vice Versa is going to murder me when I come back to the Bay Area.” Impatience was starting to pulse in Allie’s veins.

  “Vice Versa’s in L.A. now looking for you,” Beth said.

  “Looking for me where?” Allie’s throat clicked and spasmed.

  “Like, he probably went to your father’s restaurant?”

  “My father’s restaurant is no longer there. Did he find the new restaurant?” Allie could feel her face inflaming. The trembling in her hands increased. She wanted to wiggle her nose, bewitch herself through space, land in Beth’s apartment, take the phone out of her hand, and repeatedly whack her in the head with it. Did she actually tell Vice Versa the name of her father’s restaurant?

  “Rosie says if you run into Vice Versa and he shows you his dick, pretend he’s Billy Idol!” Beth started laughing, and then she got the hiccups and laughed even harder. Allie realized Beth was completely smashed. She often got the hiccups when she’d had more than three drinks.

  “You’re too drunk to help me out now.” Allie looked up and saw the hostess watching her with giant, glowing eyes. “I’m sorry I have your car.” Allie tried to reshuffle her brain, calm herself so she could stand up and exist in the world, in this moment, like a normal person. “And I think you have Stockholm syndrome.” She hung up and stood beside the tall hostess.

  “I need to use the bathroom,” the hostess said. “Could you seat this deuce at that far table in the corner?” She pointed to a table Allie couldn’t see.

  “Sure.” Allie looked down at the list. Focusing on the deuce was the perfect way to re-center herself. “James!” she called out, and she picked up two menus from the stack under the podium, stepped out, and held them against her chest. “James, party of two!”

  The James couple approached Allie side-by-side, hand-in-hand, like a pair of proud, chest-puffed doves.

  “Right this way.” Allie turned and walked through the restaurant, deliberately placing one foot in front of the other. I am alive, I am in a steakhouse, I am seating the James party of two. No one in this restaurant is trying to kill me. I’ll think of Vice Versa another time.

  By the time she had seated the couple, Allie felt reoriented. The hostess was still gone when she got back to the podium, but Sloane was there, waiting.

  “Is the table for Sloane available yet?!” She rapped her nails against the podium again.

  “I’ll call you when it’s ready,” Allie said sternly. Sometimes you had to get tough with the really hungry ones. Sloane walked away quickly, stiffly. Allie knew this type—Sloane was used to getting everything she wanted exactly when she wanted it.

  Allie picked up the phone to call her father again. “Dad,” she said, when he answered. “If someone wanted to find you in L.A. how would they do it? I mean, is the address to the new restaurant listed somewhere?”

  “What are you getting at, Allie?” Frank never sounded happy to hear Allie’s voice on the phone and he appeared to be even more inconvenienced by this call than most others.

  Sloane approached once more. Allie held up her index finger, making the one-minute signal, but Sloane would not accept it. “My husband said that that couple you just seated came in after us!” Sloane said. She was wrong.

  “Dad.” Allie looked down at the ground, refusing to make eye contact with Sloane. “If a man named Vice Versa shows up at the restaurant or your house, don’t open the door.”

  “Who is Vice Versa and why would he show up?” Frank was using the gruff tone that used to make Allie run to her room and hide in the closet. He had never even spanked her, his voice was always punishment enough.

  “He’s just some mean-nasty black guy that’s been giving me trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble has he given you?” Frank’s voice went up in a way that Allie had never heard before. There was a sudden silence of the TV in the background. Had Frank actually turned off the set?

  “I haven’t quite met him yet—”

  “Then how do you know he’s a black guy?”

  “Come on, Dad! The guy’s name is Vice Versa! Can you imagine a white guy named Vice Versa?”

  “Allie, I have raised you better than that! Do not assume that just because his name is original he is a black man.”

  “Sorry, Dad.” Allie glanced at Sloane, who refused to leave the podium. She turned away, the phone cord wrapping around her shoulder, her back to Sloane.

  “Excuse me! I’m a customer here and you are being paid to help ME!” Sloane said.

  Allie whipped her head toward Sloane and spat, “I don’t work here!” She turned back to the phone. “Listen, Dad. He’s some guy that my employer in Oakland hired to kill me.”

  “Why would your employer want to kill you?” Frank spoke softly. As if maybe he were worried about Allie, or even scared for her.

  “I don’t know,” Allie lied, “but just stay away from this guy.”

  “Allie!” Frank’s voice was coming out like a bark. “Tell me exactly what kind of trouble you’re in. When you say kill do you really mean kill? As in commit an act of homicide?”

&
nbsp; Sloane was leaning across the podium, trying to get her face in front of Allie.

  “You’ve only been waiting twenty minutes!” Allie said.

  “Allie!” Frank’s voice shook the phone against Allie’s ear. “Is there honestly a person roaming Los Angeles who is looking for me so he can get to you and extinguish your life?!”

  “That couple you just seated came in after us. My husband is sure of it,” Sloane said.

  “They were here twenty minutes before you.” Allie pointed to the recently crossed-out name on the list.

  “Allie!” Frank shouted, and then the phone went dead. Allie looked at the receiver. Of course her father would hang up again. When she was a kid, if she asked a question twice on the phone (are you sure I can’t go to the movies with Kathy?), he simply hung up. Allie put the phone back into the receiver and looked at Sloane.

  “My husband is certain they came in before us. He recognizes the woman from the bank,” Sloane said. “He took note when she walked in.”

  “I am not kidding you.” Allie surprised herself with her stern voice. It felt as though she were channeling her father. “I will call you when your table is ready and until then do not approach me at this podium.”

  Sloane’s mouth was half-open. “Get me your manager,” she said. Her voice was shaky.

  “Find the manager yourself,” Allie said, and she picked up the phone again and dialed Frank’s number while glaring at Sloane. The phone rang and rang.

  A waiter approached and tapped Allie on the shoulder.

  “Yes?” Allie asked. She kept the phone at her ear, still ringing.

  “I got an empty four-top that’s waiting to be filled. Do you mind getting off the phone?” He stared at Allie with his head tilted away, as if from exasperation. It was a scolding look.

  “Yeah, okay,” Allie said. Her father had probably had enough of her drama. She hung up the phone and picked up four menus.

  Sloane was the next party of four on the list, but there was no way Allie was going to give them the table now. “Tavis!” Allie called out. She bit the inside of her mouth to alleviate some of the sudden guilt she felt for bypassing Sloane. Wai Po would have castigated her with one of her sayings. Maybe LAW CONTROL THE LESSER MAN, RIGHT CONDUCT CONTROL THE GREATER ONE.

  At eleven, when the final customer, including the Sloane party, had been seated, Allie straightened the menus, ripped the used pages out of the ledger, and tidied the hostess stand. The hostess had never returned, so Allie had taken over. She had dialed her father’s apartment eleven times in between seating tables, but Frank had never answered. It was likely he was dead asleep, his hands placed neatly atop the covers as if he were being laid out in a casket. That was how he always slept. Allie imagined that her father was so solid that he became immoveable at night. A slab of marble carved into the shape of a man.

  The scolding waiter approached Allie just as she was about to leave and handed her a wad of soft, folded bills. “Your tips,” he said.

  “Is this from everyone?” Allie asked. At her father’s restaurant, all the servers gave the hostess ten percent of their tips.

  “Everyone who’s clocked in tonight,” he said, and walked away just as the hostess returned. Her hair looked stringy and wind-blown, her straight-edge cut now misaligned. There was a rim of white powder around her nostril.

  “Where were you?” Allie asked.

  “Doing you-know-what-with-you-know-who.” The hostess checked the menus and book, saw that it was all properly arranged, and smiled.

  “I don’t even know you,” Allie said, “so I really have no idea what you-know-what-with-you-know-who is.”

  “Doing it with Bill.” The hostess pointed to the back of the restaurant with her thumb. “The manager?”

  “I don’t work here,” Allie said. “Do you know that? Do you understand that I just walked in off the street to use the phone?” Frank’s powerful voice was seeping out of her again.

  “Oh my god!” The hostess laughed. “I thought you were someone who worked here who was showing up but not on her regular shift! Oh my god! That is so funny! But, you know, I’m kinda glad you don’t work here, ’cause, like, some woman was complaining about you to Bill and he, like, wanted me to fire you!”

  “You can’t fire me,” Allie said. “I quit.” She tucked the wad of bills into her pocket and walked out.

  Chapter 9

  Allie stopped at four different hotels on Cabrillo Boulevard along the beach. They were all sold out. She gave up, gave in, and went back to the Biltmore. With their elevated prices, they wouldn’t be sold out. The bread bag was dangling from her fist as Allie stood at the reception counter. There was almost four hundred dollars in her purse from the money Mike had given her, less what she paid for gas, plus what she earned in tips from hostessing.

  “Can I help you?” The woman on the other side of the counter looked as tidy and fresh as a 1970s Pan Am stewardess. She didn’t hide the fact that she was examining Allie, her eyes clicking up and down as if she were checking for lice or disease.

  “I’d like a room for tonight,” Allie said.

  “We’re sold out for tonight.”

  “No way,” Allie said. “How could you be sold out?”

  “We’re often sold out weeks in advance. Can I find you a room for another night?” The woman tilted her head and forced a smile that had the same effect as if she’d given Allie the finger.

  “Forget about it,” Allie mumbled. She turned and walked toward the elevators. Penny would let her sleep on the couch, especially if Allie gave her more coke.

  Allie gave a rhythmic knock on Penny and Jet’s door. After a suspiciously long pause, Jet came out wearing an open silk-kimono robe. Allie didn’t look down.

  “Can I talk to my mother?” Allie kept her voice matter-of-fact.

  “She’s sleeping,” Jet said.

  “Can I crash on the couch in your room? I’m homeless. For now.”

  “Aren’t you a coed somewhere?” Jet gave a sinister smile, revealing his little, carved, dagger teeth.

  “A coed?” If Allie hadn’t felt so much anger toward Jet, she would have laughed at his ancient phrasing.

  “A college girl. Aren’t you in college somewhere? Don’t you have a dorm room or a sorority or something like that?”

  “It’s summer. Can I talk to my mom?”

  “She’s sleeping, I told you.”

  “She did a whole pile of coke before the show. There’s absolutely no way she’s sleeping.”

  “Where’d she get the coke?”

  “Billy Idol,” Allie said, and smiled.

  “She did not!” Jet waved his hand.

  “Can I talk to her?” Allie leaned to either side of Jet, trying to see into the room. The lights were out. Maybe her mother was in the bathroom.

  “She’s sleeping.”

  “Jet! Where is she?!” Allie was growing impatient. Over the course of the day, the child-to-adult status of her relationship with Jet had irrevocably changed. She now saw him as a small-minded, small-world, perverted little pedophile.

  “She’s at the bar,” Jet said.

  “Why aren’t you at the bar?” Allie asked.

  “I don’t like the clientele,” Jet said, and he pushed the door shut.

  The stairs were faster than the elevator, so Allie trotted down. Billy Idol and his band mates were at the bar, along with all of Mighty Zamboni minus Jet. Everyone was roaring with laughter, including Penny, who sat on the lap of the black-haired drummer from Billy Idol’s band.

  “OH MY GOD, LOOK WHO’S HERE!” Penny screamed. She rushed to Allie as if they were sorority sisters meeting up at a mixer.

  Allie untangled her mother’s arms from around her neck. Penny grabbed at the bread bag and tried to tug it out of her daughter’s hand.

  Allie immediately regretted her decision to stay at the Biltmore. “Leave it alone,” she snapped, and she pulled back so quickly that Penny stumbled.

  “It’s my China B
lackie bird!” Billy Idol got up from his stool, came over to Allie, and led her away from Penny.

  “That’s my SISTER!” Penny caught up to them, then flopped her belly onto a barstool, bottom out. She wobbled around the stool like a nine-year-old. Allie was only slightly embarrassed. These were rock stars, they were used to idiotic behavior.

  “It’s your daughter, you bleedin’ sot!” Billy Idol said, and everyone, including Allie, laughed.

  “Hey,” Allie said, and she sort of leaned into Billy’s chest the way a cat might if it wanted to be scratched.

  “How you doing, China?” Billy pulled up a stool and patted it so Allie would sit.

  “She’s got coke!” Penny yelled. She popped off the stool and stumbled into Billy Idol and Allie, throwing one arm across each of their shoulders.

  “Mom, you need coffee or something,” Allie said.

  “I need more of that COKE!”

  “Shh!” Allie said. “It’s too much for you, Mom.”

  Billie Idol leaned in close to Penny and quietly said, “Last I heard it’s illegal in America, so you best keep quiet about it. Now why don’t you be a good bird and go sit on my mate’s lap and let him order you a café or something?”

  Allie wondered if she’d ever stop swooning over his accent, which made her feel like a melting popsicle: sticky, watery, going down.

  Penny snatched at the bread bag with two hands. Billy Idol detached Penny’s hands, then threw her over his shoulder like a bag of grain. “Nigel, you got this one, mate?”

  “Hear hear,” Nigel said, and he patted his skinny, snakeskin-bound thighs.

  It was as miraculous as if Marc had fallen in love with Allie again. She was in Billy Idol’s suite. In his bed. Naked. And they were talking. Billy didn’t want any more coke and he was too tired for sex, so they were snuggling. Face-to-face. Flesh against flesh.

  Allie told Billy the story of her childhood, her mother leaving to be the tambourine girl, her father devoted to his restaurant. She told him about Wai Po, how she was the only person who kept track of Allie: saving her report cards, framing her drawings and paintings, showing up to school plays and sitting in the front row. She didn’t tell him about Jonas, Vice Versa, or Rosie—that story seemed too sordid for this moment, too dark.